The invention relates generally to thermal management systems, and more particularly to thermal management systems for use in embedded environments.
Environments having embedded electronic systems, hereinafter embedded environments or heated environments, offer challenges for thermal management. Such systems produce waste heat as a part of their normal operation, heat that must be removed for proper performance and reliability of the embedded electronics. The design of thermal management systems to provide cooling for embedded electronics is a formidable challenge due to space limitations. Examples of embedded electronic systems include single board computers, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), operator interface computers, laptop computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), personal pocket computers, and other small electronic devices, there is a limited amount of available space for thermal management systems. It has been known to use passive cooled heat sinks or forced air-cooling as thermal management systems to assist in the removal of heat from electronic components. Further, it has been known that conducting the heat generated by electronic components to a printed circuit board, on which they are mounted, provides a migration of the heat from a smaller area to a larger area. However, such techniques have limited heat removal capabilities.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved thermal management systems for embedded electronic systems.